Shahul, I think you're missing my point. The whole point of my post wasn't to tell people which car was better or which power-plant is better. There is never going to be a final answer to that because everyone's tastes are different. I was simply trying to boil down to a few short and relatively quick questions one can ask themselves when debating "do I want a 550i or a 535i?" The way that you answer those questions should likely pretty easily determine whether you should get the one or the other... Thats all.

I for example love my V-8 and I don't really mod cars any longer because my wife drives my car now and I found that in MY experience in the PAST that mods I made to my cars usually ended up making the car super fun, but more trouble, more things went wrong and more money ended up getting spent, usually for pretty marginal returns in HP and Torque. This is MY experience and it was in the past.

I do not have a N54 or N55 motor but as I said in another response, I have driven many of them, modded and not. They're great motors! They can be fast as hell and are real smooth and torquey across the band but especially at low rpm's! They can blow the doors off a stock 550i with upping the psi. Thats awesome. For my money and the way I drive and who I share my car with and my lack of wanting to do too many mods and for what its worth, my desire to keep a car somewhat close to what it was sent off the line to be, I like my 550i with a handful of little things done to it.

I don't disagree with what you're saying or with what the link says or that many BMWs are now force-fed, or that all M power plants are now force-fed or that more and more each year across all brands are, etc. etc. etc. I'm simply saying, and I'm not alone here, that I like BMW's NA V-8 over the twin turbo'd straight 6 in a close to stock car. Read the forums of M5 owners, I'll be the first to say the new M5 is SICK!!! But there are a lot of dudes out there with the past 2 generations' saying its a travesty to lower the displacement and put twin turbos on an M5. Read the M3 forums, people are sick that the new M3 will have turbos too and no longer be NA. Maybe 20 years from now we'll all eat our words but everyone is allowed their own opinion and thats really the whole point of the post.

People, make up your own minds and don't hate on people that have a differing view.

I Do agree with you, it's one's preference.

Let me give you an example, people bring new releases on products based on the market/demand/value/customer's satisfaction... Every product when released will have a lot of expectations and customers like us are skeptical with the new change that is coming in....

So all those M5/M3 owners have liked the V8/V10 power and now when they hear that BMW is changing the direction to an inline 6 they are again skeptical and doubtful if it would be in par with their current M's.... Time will prove all those people with a simple fact that we all 535i's love the engine and we are sure the new era of turbo's will rock... Everything has a flaw nothing is 100% perfect so we accept and go for the best..

Anyways, there is nothing personally i commented, like you said everyone has a different taste and preference..